$600,000 fire loss! Weather is big help in fight made on flames

Forest blazes in foothills of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties reported well under control today; refugees returning to mills and camps

Revised and more complete estimates of losses indicate that total will not greatly exceed $600,000

Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, June 2, 1922

Forest fires that have been raging in the foothills of the Cascades in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties since Monday are well under control today and a check up on the damage reports indicates that the losses will not greatly exceed $600,000. The fire that threatened to destroy the village of Kerriston, thirty-five miles southeast of Seattle, is out and the village saved. A shift of the wind saved the village when it seemed doomed to destruction late yesterday.

Weather conditions favored the firefighting armies in all fire-swept districts today. A heavy dew fell last night and the morning was foggy. These conditions checked the spread of the fires and gave the firefighters an opportunity to do effective protective work. There was little or no wind to spread the flames.

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Flames menace virgin timber; railway burned

Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, August 17, 1920

Five hundred men are fighting blazes on logging properties at Enumclaw, Eagle Gorge, and Selleck—telephone communication reported interrupted

TACOMA, Tuesday, Aug. 17—Five hundred men are battling forest fires in the eastern part of King County. Employees of White River Lumber Company at Enumclaw, Page Lumber Company at Eagle Gorge, and Pacific States Lumber Company at Selleck are working to prevent further destruction to virgin timber and halt fires now raging in that district.

Since Thursday nearly 300 men have been fighting fires near the Page Lumber Company in Eagle Gorge. Telephone communication has been cut or and it is believed the telephone wires have been burned. News of these conditions is reported from Palmer, eight miles from Eagle Gorge. One donkey engine has been burned and more than 20 miles of logging railroad owned by the Page Company are threatened.

Last night the fires began in timber of the White River Lumber Company, five miles northeast of Enumclaw. One hundred men are fighting the blazes there today, according to reports reaching here.

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Gorge dam begun

Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, February 3, 1959

HANSON DAMSITE: At Eagle Gorge, on the Green River, 30 miles southeast of Seattle, work started today on the long-planned Howard A. Hanson Dam. The broken line indicates where the crest of the dam will cross the narrow valley, creating a lake eight miles long and impounding 106,000 acre-feet of flood waters. Poring over maps indicating the area to be covered in excavation and subsequent construction were, from left, James J. Grafton, resident engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, and two surveyors, Louis Zumek for the Army Engineers and Andrew McDermott for the Henry J. Kaiser Co. and Raymond International, joint contractors.

The final step in a long-deferred flood-control project, construction of the Howard A. Hanson Dam on Green River, got under way today.

Dean H. Eastman, president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the Northern Pacific Railway Co., threw a switch setting off a blast of dynamite. L. Costello, member of a civic committee organized by the late Mr. Hanson to urge dam construction, moved the first shovelful of earth.

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Story of diminutive deputy sheriff who enforces the law throughout a territory of seven hundred square miles

Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, August 2, 1908

By “W.T.P.”

Suppose you were a policeman with a beat of 700 square miles.

Suppose this included sixteen coal mining towns, where the rough element predominated, and fights, murders, and all sorts of crimes succeeded each other so rapidly that you hardly had a breathing space between.

Suppose you were the only officer of the law in all this district, and that your hours were from 8 o’clock every morning, including Sunday, to 8 o’clock the next.

Suppose your duties had thrown you into desperate fights, open revolver battles, chases that lasted for days at a time through the seemingly trackless woods, and that a dozen times you had been within an inch of your life.

If you could meet all these conditions you would be the counterpart of Matt Starwich, deputy sheriff for the district of Ravensdale, and you would be an “every-day hero.” There are few people in the county who have more deeds of heroism to their credit than this same Matt Starwich.

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Eagle Gorge Dam renamed for Howard Hanson

Text and photos from the Howard A. Hanson Dam dedication program, May 12, 1962

Eagle Gorge Dam was renamed Howard A. Hanson by an act of Congress 28 July 1958, introduced by Congressman Thomas M. Pelly, and signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 August 1958.

Many people worked long and hard to establish a flood-control project on the Green River in King County of Western Washington. One of these was Howard A. Hanson.

In addition to his many prior years of personal effort, he was, from 1947 until his death on 4 November 1957, a leader of civic and government groups actively seeking construction of the project. He organized and directed effective action leading to contributions by the state and King County totaling $2,000.000.

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Formation of coal: Address delivered by noted coal mining engineer at convention of salesmen

Originally published in the Pacific Coast Bulletin, January 4, 1923

By George Watkin Evans

George Watkin Evans, 1924

There are two principal theories of coal formation, one called the Drift Theory and the other In Situ.

There are advocates of both theories, and personally I believe that each is right within limits. I am of the opinion that some coal beds have been formed in the places where we now find them, whereas in other instances, the vegetable matter which constitutes the coal bed grew in another spot and has been transported by water to the place where we now find the coal.

In the Drift Theory it is assumed that the vegetable matter grew in one spot and a current of water carried the decaying vegetal material and deposited it some distance from the spot on which it grew.

One argument for this theory is that there are many partings of shale and other impurities in some of our coal beds and again some of the coal itself is very heavy in ash. It is reasoned that if the material was not carried by currents and deposited some distance from the place where it grew that the partings of shale and other impurities would not be associated with the coal.

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Incorporation inspires optimism for Black Diamond’s future growth

Originally published in the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, January 1959

Black Diamond, Enumclaw’s next-door neighbor to the north, voted to incorporate as a fourth class town on January 20. At the same election, the voters named seven officials to conduct the town’s business. From left to right are councilwoman Mrs. Gertrude Botts, councilmen Ernest Richardson and Stan W. Hubber, Mayor Lloyd W. Hagen, councilman Gomer Evans Jr., treas. Frank Costi and councilman Louis J. Zumek. The picture was taken at an informal meeting held at the home of Mayor and Mrs. Hagen on Wednesday evening, January 21. —C-H Staff Photo

Seven miles northeast of Enumclaw, not far from the north bank of the tortuous Green River, a ghost has yawned and is giving every indication that before long it will throw off its spooky habiliments and take on real flesh and blood.

As the result of a special election on Tuesday, January 20, the Black Diamond settlement, after approximately 75 years’ of existence, became a fourth class incorporated town. At the same election, the voters named a mayor, treasurer, four councilmen and one councilwoman.

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‘Operation Bootstrap’

Originally published in The Seattle Times, February 24, 1959

Cracker-barrel confab: Three town officials elected when Black Diamond incorporated as a fourth-class city last Tuesday, held a post-election conference in the town grocery store. From left, Mrs. Gertrude Botts, council member; Frank Costi, city treasurer and ex-officio city clerk, and Gomers Evans, Jr., councilman. Two of Mrs. Botts’ six children, David, 3, and Connie, 5, were in the foreground. The incorporation was a major step in efforts to rejuvenate the town, once a coal-mining center.
—Times staff photo by John T. Closs.

By John J. Reddin, Times Staff Reporter

BLACK DIAMOND, Jan. 24 — This once booming coal-mining town, now “just another wide spot in the road,” is being given a taste of “Operation Bootstrap” by a group of spirited residents and merchants.

And, like a sick patient responding to a shot of adrenalin, the sleepy town is feeling the effects of its unexpected awakening.

Black Diamond virtually has stood still since the mid-1920s, when a strike closed several of the larger coal mines. A decrease in the demand for coal also has contributed to the “economic bust.”

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Diamond Junction: Where yesterday meets today

This 1908 photo is from Central Washington University’s Brooks Library Digital Collection, http://digital.lib.cwu.edu/.

Green River Hot Springs

Originally published in the BDHS newsletter, January 2010

By Ken Jensen

Being a relative newcomer to Black Diamond and a self-proclaimed history buff, I’m constantly peppering Archivist JoAnne Matsumura, President Keith Watson, and others with questions about the area’s history: Where was Mine No. 7? How did trains turn around in Franklin? Where was the town of McKay? Some of my queries can be resolved simply by checking out an old publication; others by checking in with an old-timer. Some take a little more digging.

Matsumura suggested such a challenge. A little-known town—a town a bit outside the usual Black Diamond Historical Society purview—but one of great interest to Matsumura (she collects postcards from the once remarkable hotel) and Vice President Don Malgarini (he spent summers there whiling away his childhood): Green River Hot Springs.

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